The following six strategies can help us to let go of the past and move on with our lives more effectively :
1) VALIDATION :
According to Horowitz, if our past childhood trauma and the pain it has caused is, subsequently, invalidated (e.g. denied, ignored, dismissed, minimized, mocked etc.) by those who have harmed us, the psychological harm done to us is amplified. This makes it harder to move forward in our lives.
However, if this is the case, it can be
Although, without appropriate and effective therapy, PTSD can devastate lives (including, of course, variants of PTSD resulting from severe childhood trauma), as the disorder has become increasingly studied by clinicians it has also become more and more apparent that some individuals affected by the disorder not only overcome their suffering, but, also, report positive changes to their lives that have derived from working through the effects of their traumatic
We have seen from other articles that I have published in the ‘Postraumatic Growth’ section (see MAIN MENU at the top of this page) of this site that it is not only possible to recover from the adverse effects of trauma but even to go on to develop as an individual in response them in ways that would not have been possible had the traumatic events not occurred.
The concept of posttraumatic growth is closely related to existential philosophy / psychology.
Our relationships with others significantly influence how we cope with and respond to trauma ; the researchers Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) suggested that specific reasons as to why this should be so included the following :
Other researchers (e.g. Cordova et al., 2001 ; Leopore and Revenson, 2006) suggest that relationships with others in which we feel safe to make emotional disclosures may be of particular value.
Leopore and Revenson also
We are more likely to cope with trauma, overcome it and go on to experience posttraumatic growth if we have a good social support system around us. Indeed, those with access to good social support systems tend to have both a better sense of general emotional wellness (Henderson and Brown,1988) and lower levels of depression (Lara et al.,1997) when compared to those individuals who lack social support.
What Are The Benefits Of Having A Good Social Support System?
Human
Above : Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
‘He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.’
— AESCHYLUS, AGAMEMNON
The vast majority of studies examining the effects of trauma on the individual have concentrated on the negative effects such as depression, anxiety, phobias, flashbacks, nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and so on. However, more recently,
We make sense of our lives by telling ourselves a story about it – however, this does not mean the story we tell ourselves reflects reality, not least because how we act and behave are often motivated by unconscious processes of which, by definition, we are unaware.
Those who have suffered abusive childhoods very often grow up to believe that they are a ‘bad’ person (click
Many people, after suffering a terrible trauma, find that, once they have got through it and started to recover from its damaging psychological effects, they eventually reach a stage whereby they are able to use their adverse experiences to develop them as a person in highly positive ways that benefits both themselves and society at large. This has been termed by psychologists posttraumatic growth (click here to read an earlier article I have written about this).
After experiencing
childhood trauma posttraumatic growth
‘Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.’
– Nietzsche
Much of the research into the effects of severe trauma has concentrated upon its NEGATIVE effects; indeed, a large proportion of the articles on this site have analysed such effects. However, as new research is showing that the experience of trauma can also have a positive transforming effect upon a person’s life, I thought I would redress the balance by including some articles, of which this is the first, on this
